Ist das so?

(The title of a song that I enjoy by the band 'Wir sind Helden')

Hey, everyone.

I wanted to apologize to my ersatz audience for not writing in so long. In the past two weeks, I've been busy learning my lines to be Raphael the archangel in a play that my sister is directing, managing relations with family, watching the World Cup (DEUTSCHLAND!!! --- 4:0! Did everyone SEE that game???), trying to keep/get back into shape, and having a truly fantastic time in Europe.

Now I'm back at home and getting ready for performances in said play and getting ready to go back to work at the ol' café (where I used to work during high school).

When I was in Germany spending time with my girlfriend, I also spent time with some of her friends -- well, people I would also consider friends of mine. True, she gets to spend more time with them than I do. However, I just wanted to mention how incredible it is that I feel so connected to and understood by these fantastic people who I have only ever seen for about a month out of my 19 years-minus-seventeen-days. That's pretty damn neat.

It's like these new college friends that I have. I mean, it happens to almost everyone -- going to college, you get these friends that are, by the end of a semester or two, almost as close to you as your closest friends were at home but you've known them for a fraction of the time. Why does it work like that? I have a theory -- I think it has to do with friends at home knowing you for so long and through so many things that they think they understand you completely, and maybe they understood the 10 year-old you, or the 15 year-old one -- but by the time you're 18, you feel so different. And yes, have a good laugh any adults that might be reading this -- we 18-year-olds, young as we are, certainly feel like we know a good damn deal about the world. Anyways, these college friends -- they have a fresh perspective. They see you only when you get there, only when you react to these crazy new circumstances, when you get to pick your own classes and friends and hobbies and food and schedule.

But -- well, my college friends are pretty damn fantastic, and so are the folks I know in Germersheim, Germany. I just -- tonight's one of those nights during which I am in a constant state of realization of just how lucky I am.

It's pretty cool.

Happy 4th of July, folks.